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Heat wave is no reason for alarm for future

If it wasn't for the refreshing cold front pushing through parts of the U.S. right now, one might be tempted to think there is something to all that global warming nonsense that conveniently breaks out every time it is warm enough for a climate change alarmist to break out in a sweat.

To be fair, climate change is real. It occurs four times a year when winter turns into spring turns into summer turns into fall. Alarmists don't see it that way, so they squawk "The sky is falling" every time conditions vary outside their interpretation of what they think is normal.

If there was ever a case to be made for global warming, it would have been in 1936 -- back in the days when no one worried about how cow flatulence or greenhouse gas affected the atmosphere.

Unlike anything we've experience since; the three-month long 1936 North American heat wave wiped out crops and snuffed out lives during the Great Depression's "Dust Bowl" days. The heat wave that began in June largely ended in September, leaving in its wake over 5,000 deaths, drought, and widespread destruction. Even as hot as it's been, many of the record-high temperatures experienced then are unmatched today.

To make matters worse, the 1936 heat wave was preceded by one of the most severe cold waves of the 1930s. The 1936 North American cold wave included recorded wind chills of minus-100 degrees Fahrenheit in the Midwest, ending with March floods. People concentrated on how to put the next meal on the table rather than obsessing over things like air temperature fluctuations.

It's good they didn't obsess, because temperatures returned to normal that fall, just like the cold front making its way across the country is doing today as I write.

The planet spins, the seasons change, temperatures fluctuate -- and mere mortals are foolish enough to think they can control the forces of nature on a global scale and believe they can turn back the tides by the sound of their voice. Four years ago, then-Sen. Barack Obama proclaimed his policies would lead to future generations acclaiming "this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal," attributing zero credit to the planet's creator in whom Obama professes to believe.

It's funny how nature has a way of rebounding all by itself. The BP Gulf Oil Spill illustrates this "God Factor" in contradiction to everything alarmists believe. A most informative January 10, 2011 Time Magazine article, "After the Great Spill: How the Gulf Cleaned Itself" explains how it did just that when "microscopic bacteria" digested "much of the hydrocarbons while they were still deep under the surface." Texas A&M University chemical oceanographer John Kessler said the spill "helped us understand the capacity of a natural system to handle this kind of event by itself." Wow.

Kessler's study also found formally "significant amounts of methane" scientists thought might impact global warming and assumed "would be around for years" had "largely disappeared" when "methanotrophs (bacteria that feed off methane)" mopped up most of the mess.

Reasonable stewardship of the planet is a non-partisan no-brainer, but there is a line to be drawn at the point where choices inflict indelible injury on mankind -- making man subservient to the very things created to serve him.

According to The New Yorker, Obama has said "the most important policy he could address in his second term is climate change." Unemployment numbers are abysmal, and the economy is in tatters, so the Alarmist-In-Chief elevates his pay grade to do something a little more vexing like healing the planet. Amazing.

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Susan Stamper Brown writes about politics, the military, the economy and culture.